“Apple Inc. is planning to use its own chips in Mac computers beginning as early as 2020, replacing processors from Intel Corp., according to people familiar with the plans,” Ian King and Mark Gurman report for Bloomberg. “The initiative, code named Kalamata, is still in the early developmental stages, but comes as part of a larger strategy to make all of Apple’s devices — including Macs, iPhones, and iPads — work more similarly and seamlessly together, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. The project, which executives have approved, will likely result in a multi-step transition.”

“Apple could still theoretically abandon or delay the switch,” King and Gurman report. “For Apple, the change would be a defining moment. Intel chips remain some of the only major processor components designed by others inside Apple’s product portfolio. Currently, all iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, and Apple TVs use main processors designed by Apple and based on technology from Arm Holdings Plc.”

“The shift would also allow Cupertino, California-based Apple to more quickly bring new features to all of its products and stand out from the competition. Using its own main chips would make Apple the only major PC maker to use its own processor,” King and Gurman report. “As part of the larger initiative to make Macs work more like iPhones, Apple is working on a new software platform, internally dubbed Marzipan, for release as early as this year that would allow users to run iPhone and iPad apps on Macs, Bloomberg News reported last year.”

There is no reason why Apple could not offer both A-series-powered Macs and Intel-based Macs. The two are not mutually exclusive…

iOS devices and OS X Macs inevitably are going to grow closer over time, not just in hardware, but in software, too:

Think code convergence (more so than today) with UI modifications per device. A unified underlying codebase for Intel, Apple A-series, and, in Apple’s labs, likely other chips, too (just in case). This would allow for a single App Store for Mac, iPhone, and iPad users that features a mix of apps: Some that are touch-only, some that are Mac-only, and some that are universal (can run on both traditional notebooks and desktops as well as on multi-touch computers like iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and – pretty please, Apple – Apple TV). Don’t be surprised to see Apple A-series-powered Macs, either. — MacDailyNews Take, January 9, 2014

• In order to build the best products, you have to own the primary technologies. Steve felt that if Apple could do that — make great products and great tools for people — they in turn would do great things. He felt strongly that this would be his contribution to the world at large. We still very much believe that. That’s still the core of this company. — Apple CEO Tim Cook, March 18, 2015

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33 Comments

” “As part of the larger initiative to make Macs work more like iPhones…”

I do NOT want my Mac to work like an iPhone. I want a real computer that allows me to work the way I desire, not the way Apple thinks I should work. I’ve been a Mac user since 1985 but the convergence of the desktop with the phone is going the wrong direction.

Have to agree with you on the 3rd party Mac apps. There was a time where nothing could beat Apple’s 1st party Mac apps. I use 3rd party apps for so much now. Airmail and Fantastical; just to name a few.

If they do that, they’ll need a Rosetta type way to run legacy intel apps. For that, it would be very helpful if they’d only have to care about 64 bit code. So I guess they would like to deprecate all 32 bit code as soon as possible, like in the next version of macOS. Ummmmh…

No, not like Rosetta. Getting CISC CPU based software to run on RISC CPUs is much more complicated. We’d be back to using an emulation system that licensed Intel APIs. They’re slow relative to native software. Have fun with that. The loss of virtualization would be painful.

I don’t think so, with the LLVM support in A series processors a Rosetta solution could work. That was the issue with the PowerPC line of chips, they didn’t support that, hence having to use emulators. If they could have an A series chip that performed better relative to Intel, like the core duo performed relative to the G4, it would work. But the A series processor would have to have raw performance about 20% better than an i7 in a mobile system while using 1/10 of the energy (which is possible given current trajectory). There is no reason Apple couldn’t have both or have A series chips inside lacs to run the system while the Xeon/i5/i7 does the heavy lifting for other apps (the iMac Pro does this and its very interesting).

Well and if you think about it those buying like an expensive Mac Pro 2018 that should last a good 7-10 years won’t want major architectural changes in software that would abort the value of an expensive Macs in only a couple of years. Also those who want to also run Windows will be left out in the cold. Not a great plan for a certain market segment as in pros & business.

Did you not notice in the article that the authors project the next Mac Pro won’t ship until 2019? If this is correct, there will be no Mac Pro 2018.

If Apple shifts to A-series processors for its Mac line up we can kiss the true Mac Pro goodbye, forever. Apple is never going to develop a specific, very high end variant of the A-series chips for a true Mac Pro.

Which many have amply stated here. At the same time Tim, Craig and Phil have talked out of the other sides of their mouths saying how important the pro market is to them. We will see. Actions speak louder than words.

many of us old farts remember the problems and issues when apple was on Motorola… and then on IBM chips… Apple really started to gain in windows when they went intel.. an people could run both equally… Apple won… but to switch away now is too early for mainstream desktops and laptops.. emulation is always too slow.. many people have entrenched workflows and software based on windows… this would be a bad move for apple.. they can continue to increase the A chips speed and capabilities .. people will adapt and convert when the value is there.. it isn’t there yet! Having said that.. Intel appears to be dying. their chips are in evolution not revolution mode… Moore is dead at intel !

“You used to ride on a chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain’t it hard when you discovered that
He really wasn’t where it’s at
After he took from you everything he could steal” – Bob Dylan

I’m in Information Security and the mac is pretty much the standard in this industry.

I like that I can work with multiple operating systems on one piece of hardware. I guess technically I could rely on VMs and cloud based VMs but dang, if they bail on intel its going to make me really re-evaluate things.

Just my guess, I could see Apple using A series CPUs for things like the MacBook Air and keeping Intel chips for the MacBook Pro, iMac and Mac Pro. At least for quite a few more years. An A series laptop would be fine for home and school.

With the LLVM support, I think it’s possible. But my PowerBook G4 and PowerMac G5 both ran virtual PC back then very quickly (granted it was windows XP), that didn’t become dog slow until Microsoft bought it and crippled it. They’ll be able to figure this out, at least on the Mac side with a Rosetta type solution given enough of a performance gap. Everyone said the same thing about the risc to cisc transition in 2005 too, but then Rosetta magically appeared. Also the current x86-64 chips aren’t really cisc in the same sense that the old pentiums were when they were on netburst, they share a lot of common instructions with IA-64 & RISC routines (that’s how AMD got the -64 to work in the first place), idk, it seems possible if there’s enough performance out of the A series.

No no no. Going CISC to RISC is an ENTIRELY different situation. That’s specifically why a Rosetta solution isn’t even in the discussion. There’s no such thing.

Sorry folks, but this is apparently a subject that only people who’ve taken Computing 101 are going to comprehend. I’ve explained it here too many times to bother any further. Go do homework on CISC vs RISC CPU technology, specifically how they are profoundly different from each other. Note how going from RISC to CISC coding is relatively easy compared to going from CISC to RISC is fraught with numerous problems of extreme difficulty. Note WHY this is the case.

And no, getting into how much RISC is in Intel CISC chips does not change the problem. The CISC factor remains. Intel’s proprietary APIs aren’t going to ravel along to Apple RISC chips. Not gonna happen. That’s why I no longer have patience with these vacuous conversations.

Derek, this is my entire point, LLVM mitigates a lot of the translation layer issues inherent in the move from CISC to RISC and vice versa, it’s how Microsoft was able to get Windows 10 onto Arm processors. And with the IA-64 instruction set that Xeon’s understand it wouldn’t be that difficult for a company like Apple to figure out low level support for a dual OS environment and keep virtualisation alive and well. Yes, the code itself may be more complex, but it doesn’t mean they can’t do it. It’s just a performance gap; let’s say the A series chip runs 2x faster than a comparable i7 at the time of introduction : all they would need to do is have 50% efficient code for the system to run normally under emulation let alone virtualzation. This is why Rosetta worked, the universal binary effectively emulated the ppc code onto Core Duo hardware (and Xeon later in 06), but due to the near double performance gap (due to multiple cores) it wasn’t noticed. If an A series has this type of leap, a similar solution would work regardless of complexity.

What “new features” would running on A series processors make possible? I don’t recall the PowerPC macs being able to do anything that Intel PCs couldn’t. It all became a matter of speed and support. The biggest problem back then was that developers would ignore any feature on the mac that didn’t have a windows version, thus making those features less valuable.